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Water Droplet on a Purple Mum

I was in my studio experimenting with my white box and my 5x macro lens earlier this year.  I was also trying to improve my focus stacking technique with high-magnification subjects.  I had a purple mum that was left over from a flower arrangement and placed a water droplet on a purple mum petal. I proceeded to take some shots starting with 1x magnification and working my way up to 5x.  I was very pleased with the 5x results in general, but this image was by far the best one of the exercise.  I was hoping that the water droplet would become like a lens and project the back end of the flower in the droplet but it did not turn out that way.  Although that did not turn out as expected the stacking exceeded my expectations (at the time, anyway).  Notice the intricate detail of the pedal! They are not smooth as they appear to the naked eye.

Purple Mum Droplet
Purple Mum Droplet – 64 Image Stack

This series of images were taken with my Canon EOS 5D Mark III using my MP-E65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro Photo set at 5x magnification. The camera was set on Manual mode with the aperture set at f/8, shutter speed at 1/2 second and the ISO set to 100. A total of 64 images were taken and stacked using Helicon Focus. The final processing was done in Photoshop.

How did I get the water drop to stay on the petal?  Well, that’s a secret.  Anyone care to guess?

Please use the section below to post your comments, questions or suggestions.

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© 2015 T. Kahler Photography

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